On September 24 we hosted this year’s Elders Q&A. This is a way of facilitating and encouraging meaningful communication between the church’s leadership and the congregation. In a church as large as ours, this does require some thoughtful planning and care.

Ryan opened the evening with an explanation of why we do this each year and interacted with Scripture to give some context for the role of elders in God’s plan for his church. Then, for he first half Ryan moderated pre-submitted questions among the elders, and for the second half Trent fielded questions from the floor.

Here’s a list of questions we addressed with time stamps for the audio, which is available here.

Missions

• 8:00  DSC has sent out one family as missionaries and will send another out in the new year. What are the contingency plans should the missions giving dip below support levels?
• 10:47  There was a big push in 2011 and 2012 for local church planting as a part of the overall vision, but not much since then about what is next locally. Is local church planting still part of our strategy?
• 12:04  Other churches, even some locally, seem to have had some success with planting campuses instead of churches, would DSC leadership ever consider doing a satellite campus in Albuquerque or beyond?

Eldership

• 14:41  How do the elders hold each other accountable in their personal spiritual lives and in regard to responsibilities at church?
• 19:26  Have you considered whether the makeup of the current eldership isn’t “elderly” enough? In other words, is it too young? Related, what about the balance (or imbalance) of staff elders and non-staff elders?

Church Life: Lord’s Supper, Church Discipline, Membership, Etc.

• 22:21  Why is our communion service on Wednesday night? Is it possible to have this communion service on Sunday mornings more often? Why do we do it when we do it?
• 25:14  Is there a place in church discipline for shunning? Paul tells the Corinthians that one of their sinning members should “be removed from among you” and to “purge the evil person” from their midst. Is this shunning?
• 28:04  How can members, under the elders, be more proactive about shepherding each other?
• 30:46  Why do we have a Sunday school or adult Sun classes? Why do we have age graded Sunday School or classes?
• 32:15  What does it mean to be a member of DSC? Is that in the Bible?
• 35:53  With our new Equip classes starting in the fall, are there any thoughts to expanding the building to allow more classrooms for adult education?

Doctrine

• 37:14  Is DSC cessationist or continuationist in belief? How does that work out in what we practice?
• 40:08  How should Christians think about and relate to a government that is increasingly antagonistic to Christians and restrictive of Christian freedoms?

Questions From the Floor

• 45:14  As elders you go to the sick in the body and pray for them. How often do you do that and how does that work?
• 47:47  Is there a possibly legalistic reason behind the gender separation between a Women’s Bible Study, Men’s Huddle, etc. Is there a reason there isn’t a corporate Bible study?
• 50:58  There’s a lot of excitement with the annual thrust for missions during Missions Emphasis Week. As far as church planting, what are your thoughts about that, how often it should be done, and our strategy?
• 55:04  In years past we had a ministry called The Well for young adults. Do we have any plans to reinitiate that type of ministry? If so, how would we go about that?
• 1:00:32  We’re all excited about our missionaries going to West Africa. Some organizations are calling their missionaries back because of Ebola. Whose decision will it be to protect our missionaries not only from health issues but other potential harms throughout their career?
• 1:03:12  What are the strengths of the pastors and the congregation at our church?
• 1:06:59  Israel has been in the news a lot lately. A lot of Christians think it’s biblically required to stand behind them. What’s the church’s position?
• 1:12:23 Praises to God from each of the elders

For audio from past Elders Q&A gatherings, click here.